Week 4 Reflection
The importance of collaboration among students and educators in cooperative learning groups using technology was stressed this week in our readings. The authors of Using Technology With Classroom Instruction That Works convey that technology plays an important role in facilitating collaboration in cooperative learning groups as it aids in providing an organizational framework for group tasks and makes it possible for group members to meet together from wherever their location is as long as they have Internet access. They go on to purport that the use of technology in this way helps students grow into life-long learners (Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 143.) As such, educators need to take advantage of integrating collaborative Web 2.0 technologies into their instructional activities. However, while our students have grown up in an environment full of technology and are extremely comfortable with it, many educators are not. This is why educators must "use the technology to learn how to use the technology" as Solomon and Schrum suggest (Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, New schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 111.)
Solomon and Schrum go on to say that with Web 2.0 tools, educators can create "learning communities" as they get more and more confortable using blogs, wikis, podcasting, and social bookmarking (Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, New schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 111.) These Web 2.0 tools are beneficial for teachers to use in professional development to work together, communicating more effectively, as well as to learn from each other, and in doing so discover ways to apply these collaborative tools as a means to promote meaningful and authentic learning experiences in their classrooms for their students.
In addition, the readings this week touched on the subject of using authentic means of assessing students rather than taking a standardized test or other cookie cutter, "one size fits all" assessment to determine academic success. Rose and Meyer (2002) discuss in their book, Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning, how all three of the brain networks: recogintion, strategic, and engagement must be addressed in terms of assessment. Individual diffences that students have in each of these areas need to be addressed to achieve realistic and reliable assessment results. Just as UDL is used in lesson planning, it should also be used in planning for individual assessment with appropriate technologies in place to provide embedded supports for disabled or different learners. Planning and assessment should be done in such a way that all learners are reached using all tools available, integrating technology as appropriate, and leaving no student out, which is the basic philosophy of UDL.
The importance of collaboration among students and educators in cooperative learning groups using technology was stressed this week in our readings. The authors of Using Technology With Classroom Instruction That Works convey that technology plays an important role in facilitating collaboration in cooperative learning groups as it aids in providing an organizational framework for group tasks and makes it possible for group members to meet together from wherever their location is as long as they have Internet access. They go on to purport that the use of technology in this way helps students grow into life-long learners (Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 143.) As such, educators need to take advantage of integrating collaborative Web 2.0 technologies into their instructional activities. However, while our students have grown up in an environment full of technology and are extremely comfortable with it, many educators are not. This is why educators must "use the technology to learn how to use the technology" as Solomon and Schrum suggest (Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, New schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 111.)
Solomon and Schrum go on to say that with Web 2.0 tools, educators can create "learning communities" as they get more and more confortable using blogs, wikis, podcasting, and social bookmarking (Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, New schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 111.) These Web 2.0 tools are beneficial for teachers to use in professional development to work together, communicating more effectively, as well as to learn from each other, and in doing so discover ways to apply these collaborative tools as a means to promote meaningful and authentic learning experiences in their classrooms for their students.
In addition, the readings this week touched on the subject of using authentic means of assessing students rather than taking a standardized test or other cookie cutter, "one size fits all" assessment to determine academic success. Rose and Meyer (2002) discuss in their book, Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning, how all three of the brain networks: recogintion, strategic, and engagement must be addressed in terms of assessment. Individual diffences that students have in each of these areas need to be addressed to achieve realistic and reliable assessment results. Just as UDL is used in lesson planning, it should also be used in planning for individual assessment with appropriate technologies in place to provide embedded supports for disabled or different learners. Planning and assessment should be done in such a way that all learners are reached using all tools available, integrating technology as appropriate, and leaving no student out, which is the basic philosophy of UDL.